


the great escape

by radialarch



Category: Ocean's 8
Genre: F/F, Getting Back Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 18:34:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14959925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: Debbie Ocean gets her girlfriend back.





	the great escape

“Blonde,” says Lou.

It takes Debbie a moment to hear it. “Help me zip up,” she says, lifting her arm and twisting around, and discovers Lou sitting back on the bed with a skeptical expression, her long legs thrown out in front of her, crossed at the ankles. She’s already got her white jacket on, hair pulled back underneath her hat. She’s got _caterer_ down pat. She still won’t let Debbie see what she’s wearing to the gala.

“You zip up,” Lou says. “You don’t need my help.”

Maybe, but that wasn’t the point. Debbie likes to ask. Lou’s hard to pin down, doesn’t answer a question the same way twice, and tonight she’s all business, cool as ice. "Fine,” Debbie says, sighing, and does it herself. She’d like the time to prod at Lou’s patience, to map out all the cracks in her façade, but— not tonight. Tonight’s a job, and that means no distractions.

She reaches up with delicate fingers, checks that the wig is sitting securely along her hairline one last time, and then remembers. “You got something against the color?”

“Not your best,” Lou says, and gets fluidly to her feet. “You ready?”

 _It works on you_ , Debbie nearly says, turning around. Lou’s sliding her gaze down Debbie’s dress, stopping where the outline of her thigh is visible beneath the sheer fabric. Lou’s always had the ability to make Debbie feel undressed. It’s not that Debbie had forgotten it, in prison, just— she remembered the experience, not the intensity.

“Lou,” she says, clearing her throat. “I’ve been ready for years,”

“Five years, eight months, twelve days,” says Lou, a twist at her mouth that’s almost a smile. “I know.”

———

Amita sent Debbie a bracelet. She’s still riding the high of success, a piece of the Toussaint on her wrist and the pendant already planted in Claude’s jacket, and she's trying to shake German off her tongue when she sees Lou across the street.

Tammy's the one who had gotten them all clothes for tonight. She’d asked Debbie what she wanted, and Debbie hadn’t thought what that’d mean for Lou, tall and stubborn, most comfortable in her jackets and vests, a bright pool of color. On the dark street lit up with yellow light, Lou’s the brightest thing she can see, a priceless jewel plucked from the sea.

The road’s been blocked off. Lou crosses it careless and unhurried, but the distance closes fast under her long legs, and in a moment she’s next to Debbie, a faint smile on her face. “Hi,” she says like they’re strangers. “Shall we go in?”

The temperature’s gone down with the sun, and there’s a cool wind on Debbie’s skin. “Hello to you, too,” she says, and takes the elbow Lou offers. “Let’s see what this is all about.”

Lou’s forearm is steady under Debbie’s hands. She leads them both up the stairs, into the heart of the crime. Waiting out the midgame has never been Debbie’s favorite thing to do, but then again, it's never looked quite this good.

———

Yen leaves them at home. That’s the job done with, the night winding down, but there are diamonds glittering coolly at Lou’s ears, her throat, and Debbie can’t look away.

“Well,” Lou says, taking in the haul. Yen left most of it with them, and now here they are, spread out in front of them like stars. “Will you look at that.”

“Really is something,” Debbie agrees, leaning around Lou to rescue a bottle of champagne from the fridge. The bottle’s cold in her grip and Lou’s wearing a faint, familiar scent, and she doesn’t know what’s making her more lightheaded, the comedown from the job or Lou in front of her, beautiful and shining and close enough to touch. “A toast.”

“Job’s not done yet,” Lou says, but she steps back just the same, picks out two glasses from a cupboard and passes one over. “Someone’s gotta get arrested for this.”

“He will,” says Debbie. She pops the champagne and pours Lou a generous amount. “He’s got a big ol’ chunk of the Toussaint in his pocket, Lou, he’s not gonna know what hit him.”

“Haven’t seen the handcuffs come out,” Lou says, stubborn, and Debbie steps forward, lifts the glass up until it’s nearly to Lou’s mouth.

“You worry too much,” she says. “C’mon. Drink with me.”

Lou never liked Claude. _I don’t trust him_ , she’d said, and Debbie had ignored it, ignored her own gut. It was stupid, but now she’s making it right. Claude’s not her problem, not anymore, and Lou—

Lou tips her eyes down, past the rim of the glass to the curve of Debbie’s mouth, and Debbie smiles and watches Lou’s own mouth part open.

Lou’s eyes are closed when she presses her lips to the rim of the glass, when Debbie tilts the glass up and lets the champagne trickle into Lou’s mouth. There’s a faint crescent of lipstick on the glass when she pulls back to swallow, her throat working, the gems at her throat catching the light. “So,” she says, a wet sheen still on her lips, “all right. Let’s say, maybe, you did it.”

“We,” Debbie says, waving away the empty glass Lou offers to down a mouthful from the one she’s holding. “You know I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I do know,” Lou says, so damnably careful. “Always need me to keep watch.”

It’s been five years, eight months, and Debbie wanted a lot of things in prison, a glass of wine in a hot bath and the purr of a motorcycle and cool sheets to slide between at night, but what she wanted most was the thrill of doing a job right, triumph and revenge rolled into one; and here they are, the evidence of their success strewn all around them, and what she wants now is Lou.

“Let me,” Debbie says, setting down the champagne and fumbling for the jewelry, and comes up with a bracelet. It’s studded with sapphires, and it probably has a long, distinguished history but Debbie absolutely does not care. “Gimme your hand.”

“Deb,” Lou says, but she’s lifting her hand up. “What are you doing?”

“Basking,” Debbie says. “It’ll be fun.” She pushes Lou’s sleeve up, fastens the clasp of the bracelet around her wrist, and after that Lou lets her settle a circlet onto her head. She only protests when Debbie gets to the necklace, the ruby pendant gleaming deep red in the light.

“It’d look better on you,” she says. “Turn around.”

It shouldn’t be strange, Lou’s fingers light at the nape of Debbie’s neck, the weight of the necklace settling against her skin. They’ve done this. They’ve done worse than this. Lou’s seen her naked and she’s seen at her absolute worst, but Debbie feels like she’s being stripped clean under Lou’s careful hands, her entire being exposed and tender.

“Told you,” Lou says, turning Debbie slowly to face her. “This certainly is a look.”

“Better than Daphne Kluger?” Debbie says, a little coy. “How’s it compare?”

Lou steps back, dropping her hands. “’Course you are,” she says. “You don’t need me to tell you.”

“Lou—”

“What are we doing,” Lou says. “Debbie, come on, you know if you wanted sex you could’ve said, _hey, Lou, take me to bed_ —”

“Hey, Lou, take me to bed,” Debbie says, and laughs. “I just thought, you know, maybe I’d take it slow.”

“Why? You never take things slow.”

“I didn’t—” Debbie says, has to stop and clear her throat. “Well, it’s you. And I didn’t wanna lose, if I had one chance—”

“What,” Lou says, a demand behind the soft sound. “Tell me.”

“Five years, I was planning how to rob the Met Gala,” Debbie says, all in one breath, “sketched it out and perfected it until it was airtight, so you’d think in all that time I should be able to figure out the right thing to say to get you back.”

She was never supposed to be gone this long. They’d fallen in and out of each other’s beds, Lou and her. Claude had been her distraction, and Lou’d had hers, but they always made up in the end. Lou. Always Lou.

Debbie’s had five years to think about the kinds of things you might lose, if you were careless enough to let them go.

“Honey,” Lou says, throaty, and steps towards her, lifts up one hand to stroke her jaw. “What makes you think you ever lost me?”

Because Debbie hadn’t been here, and Lou could’ve had anyone. She must have. “It’s been,” she says, “Lou, it’s been a long time.”

“I know,” Lou says. “But I still kept all your things.”

“Lou,” Debbie says, and Lou presses a finger to her mouth, says, “Why don’t you take me to bed.”

———

Debbie likes getting dressed up: the feeling of luxurious fabric against her body, the scent of perfume clinging to her skin, jewelry settling into place like armor. She likes being seen, the weight of attention on her and the knowledge that that’s _hers_ to do with as she pleases. Maybe she’s got a taste for the dramatic. Yeah, she could’ve robbed a bank — but she hit the fucking Met.

What Lou likes, Debbie’s learned over the years, is the undoing.

She’d taken Debbie up to her bedroom, a place she hasn’t seen since before prison. Lou’s hand is on Debbie’s neck, her bare shoulder. The chain of the necklace shivers off Debbie’s nape, soundless, but Lou keeps her touch there a moment longer, breath warm against her skin. There’s the thump of something muffled; Debbie doesn’t turn to look. Lou’s not careless. Not with money, and not with this.

The bracelet next, Danny’s watch, Lou slowly unzipping Debbie’s dress along her side. It’s not what Debbie asked for, at the beginning of the night. She should’ve known Lou would do this her own way.

“You were thinking about me,” Lou says, while the dress is sliding down Debbie’s shoulder, slipping off her breasts, catching briefly at her hips. Debbie shifts, and lets her panties follow when it drops around her feet. “I did wonder.”

“Of course I did.” Debbie turns, faces Lou just as she is. Lou hasn’t undressed at all: she’s still crowned, her jumpsuit gleaming darkly, a line of diamonds marching along her sternum. But there’s a splash of pink high on Lou’s cheeks, and the pulse in her throat is beating fast. Debbie knows Lou, after all; she’s only human. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

Lou reaches up to take off her earrings, one and the other. “You know,” she says, “I would’ve gone to get you. After parole.” The necklace, delicately; the circlet in her hair. “But you brought me in for a job.”

“I,” Debbie says, mouth dry. Lou, shedding her clothing piece by piece, makes it look easy. Sometimes it is. “You didn’t miss anything,” she tells her, honestly. “I just— got myself together before I called you. Don’t wanna see me like that, anyway.”

Lou’s shrugging out of the top of the jumpsuit now, letting it slide away from her like water. Debbie lets her eyes follow the motion, obvious, and flicker back up to Lou’s face. Her hands are itching with the same instinct to touch that surges up in museums, at beautiful things. Lou would’ve made a lovely statue, she thinks, idle, sprawled languidly out in the sun as some artist’s muse. And then Debbie would’ve had to steal her, too.

“I’ve already seen you in every possible way,” Lou says, just a step away, a half-smile on her lips. “Even blonde, and you know I hate that.”

“You like it,” Debbie says, even as she reaches up. Everything else she wore tonight, Lou’s taken off — but she’s waiting for this. “You’ve always been hot for it.”

The wig on the floor, Debbie’s hair slipping free to tumble down her shoulders. Lou laughs when she presses Debbie back, down onto her bed, the sheets cool beneath her skin.

“I always want to take it off,” Lou corrects her, crawling on top of her. “See what’s underneath.”

It can’t have always been like this. They’ve had sex before, slow and unhurried, filthy, desperate, in this same bed and out of it — but it’s been five years and Lou’s drawn out the whole night like taffy, and Debbie’s blood is singing, her skin lighting up under Lou’s touch, her whole body straining toward her, up and up. “Come and see, then,” she rasps, pulling Lou’s head to hers, tasting Lou’s mouth like she hasn’t, couldn’t, the months and years she thought about it.

“You always,” Lou says, smiling against Debbie’s mouth, “went right for the things you wanted.”

“You made me wait,” Debbie points out, shifts up onto an elbow so she has more leverage. God, she wants a lot of things: Lou underneath her, her slick thighs parted, Debbie’s mouth on her driving her to distraction. Lou stripped her down and she wants to do that for her, unravel all Lou’s inhibitions until Debbie’s the only thing left.

Easy, familiar; it comes back to her like breathing. Lou lets out a low laugh when Debbie flips them over, one knee planted between her legs and the other pressed against Lou’s hip. “In a hurry?” she says, voice nearly steady until Debbie lowers her head to take a nipple between her teeth. “Jesus Christ, Deb.”

 _In a hurry_. Debbie feels the opposite of that. For the first time in years she’s not hurtling toward a plan, a goal she worked out point by point, error by error. They’ve got time; they’ve got all night, and all the nights after. The skin across Lou’s chest is going flushed, her breathing fast, and Debbie’s got nowhere else to be.

“Baby,” she says, trailing kisses down Lou’s stomach, the crease of her thigh, dragging herself backwards until she’s lying between Lou’s thighs, breathing in the smell of her. “You wanted the real me, you got me.”

Lou’s still in her underwear, thin and flimsy, going gratifyingly damp, and she obligingly shifts her hips up when Debbie slips the tips of her fingers under the waistband to peel them down the taut length of her thighs. She remembers what Lou likes, running the tip of her tongue up her slick folds, slowing as she nears her clit. She takes a moment just to savor it, the slick wet taste of Lou in her mouth, the helpless jerk of Lou’s hips when she stops, and then Lou’s thighs tighten around her head and she’s done with teasing, anyway, too wound up to want to take this slow.

Lou lets her breath shudder out slow when Debbie circles her clit with her tongue, not quite a moan but close enough to make her ache, low and burning in her belly. She keeps up a steady pressure, feeling Lou grow wetter under her mouth, the trembling quiver in Lou’s thigh under her palm, and when Lou’s breathing turns to quick sharp pants she brings up one hand up to stroke at the slick mess between her legs, lets two fingertips slip just inside her while she puts her lips around Lou’s clit and _sucks_ , and Lou groans deep in her throat, her body gone tight as a wire, comes with her fingers in Debbie’s hair.

“What do you want,” Debbie says, “tell me,” nosing along the damp crease of Lou’s thighs, and Lou drags her up before she can begin again, reaches up to wipe the slickness from Debbie’s lower lip with one finger and presses it into her own mouth.

“You’re pleased,” Lou says with an indulgent smile.

Debbie’s not hiding her own satisfaction when Lou kisses down the length of her neck, then lowers her head to leave a bite on the curve of her breast. “I like what I’m good at,” she says. “So do you.”

“What do you want me to tell you,” Lou asks, slipping one hand into the damp space between Debbie’s legs. “That you’re the best I’ve ever had?”

“ _Am_ I?” Debbie says, clenching her teeth against a shudder, and Lou laughs, crooks a finger into her, says, “I’ll tell you after.”

———

Later, Lou says, drowsy, “We’re gonna have to set up the sales.”

“I know,” Debbie says into the smooth skin of Lou’s shoulder. “We will.” She flings out one hand behind her without looking, reaching over to the bedside table for her watch, and her fingers land on something else instead: a ring, a single diamond set into the band, small and hard under her hand. She palms it, briefly considers the ceiling. “Hey.”

“What,” Lou mumbles. “You always talk so much after sex, it’s gonna give me a complex.”

Lou probably can’t see her smile. “Wanna get out of here?” Debbie says. “After the job’s over. Us.”

“Got some place in mind?”

 _Not here_ , Debbie thinks. Too much of her history tangled up in this city: Danny, Claude, the ghosts of all her previous jobs. She’d rather have the wind in her hair, Lou’s bike rumbling between her legs — and Lou, her Lou, always close enough to touch.

“Anywhere you want,” Debbie promises. “We can do anything.”

Lou makes a considering noise, curled in Debbie’s arms. “You sweet talker,” she says. “Just you and me, huh?”

“Hey,” Debbie says. “We can go see the world.”

Lou turns over to pull Debbie into a kiss, soft and slow. “If you want,” she says with her hand around Debbie’s, folding it around the ring. “I have to say, though — I’d rather see you.”

**Author's Note:**

> the original conception of this fic included way more decadent jewelry-drenched post-heist sex and way less angsting? ah, well, best-laid plans &c.
> 
> i have only seen this movie once! all canon mistakes mine. thanks to gdgdbaby for looking this over ♥

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] the great escape](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15078593) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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